


Biting the Bullet

by catsvrsdogscatswin



Series: Andercard Stories [1]
Category: Hellsing
Genre: Curses, Fang Fixation, I wasn't sure which it is so I tagged both, M/M, Magic Made Them Do It, No Millennium AU, Oral Fixation, Vampire Bites, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:28:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26866660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catsvrsdogscatswin/pseuds/catsvrsdogscatswin
Summary: During a fairly routine cleanup of some inexperienced cultists, Father Anderson gets struck with a curse that has some...rather unpleasant side effects. His nemesis, of course, thinks its hilarious, but Anderson is determined to find a way to work around said curse, rather than take the obvious out.It goes less than spectacularly.
Relationships: Alucard/Alexander Anderson
Series: Andercard Stories [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1993612
Comments: 7
Kudos: 94





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Anderseeds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anderseeds/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of an art trade with the awesome Anderseeds. Despite being in the Hellsing fandom for like seven years now, I've never written anything on this pairing, which is a damn shame, as I am WEAK for the inherent homoeroticism of rivalry and also the unparalleled aesthetics of vampire-hunting and all its attendant sub-groups. I think its because I got into Hellsing at the time of Peak Internet Cringe Culture (like 2013-2014, I forget) and lingering associations from that kinda scared me off. Still, its a fun dynamic to play with and thanks to Anderseeds, I've finally worked up my courage to put something for this ship out into the world.
> 
> Please be gentle, this is my first borderline-NSFW and I am but a small aro-ace playing with things beyond my ken. Hopefully I didn't do too bad with it.

What a lovely, lovely night it was. The moon was full and shining, he was occupied with a task, and the air was warm: this last one was a rarity in England, but something Alucard always appreciated. He was, after all, dead –scientifically speaking, anyways– and outside warmth was a pleasant novelty under any circumstances, whether it was the heat of a summer night, the touch of a lover, or the spray of blood from a victim.

Speaking of which…

The _bang_ of his Casull shattered the peace of the night, and another cultist was sent flying through the air to slump in a bloody smear against the wall.

Cleaning up this particular mess wasn't exactly high on his list of interests, but at the very least, it did promise to be slightly more entertaining than the usual routine of "worthless fool becomes vampire, goes on rampage, solve with silver bullets." According to his Master, some would-be necromancers had gotten ahold of books they shouldn't by more murderous means than usual, and, of course, the implied threat to Britain meant that they must be dealt with soon, by him specifically, since human soldiers were more valued staff than he was.

It did made sense. He could survive a great many things that the humans on the ground could not, an especial boon tonight, considering that Sir Integra was still not altogether sure what the spells in the illicit books _did_. They'd been bought on the black market, and rumors painted them to be bonafide occult, necromantic in theme, and middling-range in terms of power. Nothing so infamous or powerful that it warranted more caution or research before he was sent in, since there was a limit to how far amateurs could get with all but the most deadly –and occasionally sentient– of books. The seller's surviving companions, under duress, had admitted that the books were from a nebulous, as-yet unidentified third source. They had also nicely cleared up some small but important details: the books did not have any summoning spells, were geared exclusively towards the dead and undead, and did not have any Powers behind them worth noting.

For Alucard, this meant he was not abruptly going to have to face some incomprehensible, eldritch opponent, nor would whatever rituals these fools were enacting tear open rifts he or his Master would inevitably have to deal with later. 

The fact they might be able to affect or control the undead was what lent a tingle of _excitement_ to this mission. Faint, to be sure, but perhaps he would have a small moment of challenge tonight.

So far, it was turning out to be a deadly bore. These humans were trained, to be sure, but they were still _human_ cultists, and a far cry from the vampires he fought, even the ridiculously pathetic ones he had been facing of late. At least most vampires could _try_ to dodge his bullets before they were rendered a bloody smear on the wall.

A small part of him noted the fact that Sir Integra was going to be rather displeased with the fact he'd wasted his silver bullets on human scum. But alas, who knew what powers they had used to alter themselves already? Better to be safe than sorry and all that, and blessed silver reliably killed –and kept dead– just about anything.

Alucard wasn't sure what to make of these cultists as he steadily massacred his way into the building, a backpacker hotel on the edge of town that had probably not been so empty when the cultists moved in. They were so _weak_ , and it was either because he was facing acolytes, or the so-called necromancers were a perverse group of individuals who were only just now dipping their toes into the world of the supernatural.

He sincerely hoped it was the first one. Honestly, fighting first-time mystical human _dabblers_? He wasn't sure he could sink any lower.

There was a humming from the basement under his feet as he walked further into the building, a sort of pulsing quality to the air, and Alucard paused, then grinned.

Acolytes it was, then. A ritual was taking place.

Unhurriedly, he stowed his gun and made his way across the wooden floor, heading for the empty space of a stairwell that he sensed ahead.

Only to pause as unrepentant _glee_ coursed through him, seeing a familiar tall, ominously bulky shape straightening up from the ground, where another of the pathetic fools lay crumpled in their maroon hooded cloak.

"Judas Priest." he commented aloud, and watched those strong, broad shoulders stiffen before Anderson swiftly turned to face him, bayonets gleaming in his hands before the larger man so much as finished his turn.

"Vampire." Anderson spat in return, scowling. "I don't have time for you."

The ritual, of course. Neither of them were idiots: ferocious fighters they may be, but magic was unpredictable and therefore deadly. The cultists may very well be summoning or invoking something that could deal with, or at least delay, them both.

"Who's holding you here, then?" Alucard asked with a catty smile, visibly casting his eyes over the now-empty hallway, then the door to the stairs on the left-hand wall, roughly equidistant between them. "Not these, surely."

He idly kicked what had once been a large part of a cultist's body as the heavy, unidentifiable piece of meat shifted wetly on the floor.

Anderson snarled. Oh, surely it wasn't because he thought these pathetic fools were _redeemable_ , was it? Then again, any reason to hate Alucard seemed to do for the priest: bodily desecration was as good an excuse as any.

"Get out of my way."

Alucard had to raise an eyebrow at that. "Am I _in_ your way, Judas Priest?" he asked, casting another obvious glance to the door on the wall between them, before grinning and dissolving. Anderson was too well-trained to step back, though he grimaced in disgust and brandished his blades as a tarry, bloodlike substance filled the hallway before him, clinging to the walls and ceiling and floor as hundreds of lidless red eyes opened in those unnatural shadows.

" _ **Catch me if you can**_." Alucard rumbled playfully, before darting off towards the stairway, sliding through the cracks in the doorframe as Anderson started and belatedly moved in this unexpected direction.

Quick as he was, Alucard's shadows had still barely whisked through the door before a bayonet impaled the center of said door, followed by a foot mere seconds later as the fragile wooden construct finally slammed open and hit the opposite wall, torn off one hinge.

Alucard grinned at Anderson from the bottom of the first landing, a mostly-human shape in the unlit darkness.

"Maybe I'll leave a piece for you if you don't take too long." he teased, and barely dodged the second bayonet that whistled through the space his head had been as he dissolved back into darkness and surged down the steps.

Anderson was _fun_.

Alucard found himself grinning, or at least as much as he could grin in this form as scythlike jaws faded and formed in his amorphous mass. If nothing else, after clearing out this nest of scum, he _would_ have his fun tonight, and that was all that mattered. Crossing blades –in the mostly-metaphorical sense, at least so far– with Anderson was a heady thrill he'd almost forgotten. When was the last time he'd faced such an opponent, who gave him this kind of unceasing challenge?

Integra, maybe. His Master was nothing if not indomitable, but physically attacking her was something of a taboo, even for him. Her grandfather may have tamed him, but Integra was the first Master Alucard became truly _loyal_ to. Her challenges were with clipped words and icy glares, with a steely, triumphant smile only he ever saw as she wove her way with consummate grace through politics and battlefields alike, giving him a Master he was _proud_ to follow, showing him how truly breathtaking a stubborn, indomitable human can be when she leads. But hurting her –no. A physical attack would be a betrayal of the unspoken bond they share, the challenges that were with words and power rather than fists and fangs…and, it had to be said, he balked at giving her, or her family's seals, any excuse to truly _punish_ him. He grew intimately familiar with those punishments under Abraham, and he is not eager to invoke them again.

But ah, _Anderson_ …Alucard feels the glare of his hatred like the touch of the sun, hot and lingering on his skin. The strength and heat of his passion and conviction makes Alucard want to _melt_ , makes him want to cackle and burn in a bloodied frenzy as they tear at each other until only one remains, and he would be proud, would be _honored_ if it was Anderson who stood triumphant upon that battlefield.

He is a vampire, after all. They crave warmth, they crave _life_ , hot and pulsing in the blood. He is the No-Life King, and Anderson is nothing if not excessively lively.

Moths to a flame. Cliche, perhaps, but apt. The heat of the inferno that was _Anderson_ had Alucard's nerves prickling pleasantly, or at least, it would if he still had nerves to call his own. He was dead, after all, and not physically tangible at the moment.

The sensation was still there, however –a psychosomatic reaction, perhaps?

In any case, he does genuinely hope that Anderson is not too far behind him as he sinks into the lowest basement level where, of course, the remaining cultists have drawn some sort of elaborate pentacle on the ground in blood. They're chanting, hoods drawn up, and the sight would be moderately impressive if Alucard had not seen similar such things countless times before. Even as a human: he _had_ attended the Scholomance, however briefly.

Because of that, he was also tolerably familiar with how such rituals went, and after darting his eyes over the array and listening to what was quite honestly a near-butchery of medieval Romanian, he had to exert extreme effort into not rolling every single one of his hundreds of eyes.

They're trying to summon Dracula.

Really? _Really?_

He did have to begrudgingly give them some props for their preparation, since blood is a difficult medium to paint in, especially when multiple types are mixed as was clearly the case here, and admittedly their goal –which is stated amongst much praise and sycophantic occultism– is halfway novel. Evidently these so-called necromancers were more cultist than his Master had originally suspected, or he had guessed upon seeing the robes: they apparently envisioned a "perfect world" in which all things were dead, and were trying to achieve this by invoking the most powerful of vampires, which would then prey upon all the humans of the world and either turn them or slay the ones that did not align with the cult's vision. In their eyes, this would remove a number of problems currently facing human society, such as overpopulation, hunger, housing, and pain. Vampires could only turn so many, and they slept comfortably in tiny wooden boxes, and much of their ability to feel pain was muted, after all. Therefore, a world full of the dead was a world without pain, a world like the promised second coming in the Christian Bible.

Alucard could read between the lines. Whatever or whoever led this cult undoubtably had a much different vision –likely some sort of pathetic, pretentious lifelong desire to be turned into a vampire and rule the world– and the rest had been merely duped into this bizarre vision of what admittedly equated paradise. The attraction of being able to command an inconceivably powerful vampire, and therefore have the power to control the world, probably also accounted for their surprisingly large numbers.

He grinned a little from his place hovering in the shadows: Anderson would appreciate the blasphemy, Alucard was sure. Well, perhaps not _appreciate_ , but he would certainly be enthused about cutting them up, and Alucard was certainly looking forward to watching him do so.

Well, if they wanted Dracula, it'd be rude not to oblige. He was a gentleman once, amongst many other things.

The first indication the cultists had of an invader in their inner sanctum was the sound of a bullet roaring through the basement, and Alucard phased back into solid existence with an annoyed click of his tongue as the bullet stopped short of the leader's head. It would've been _so_ amusing to see them scurrying around like rats after his head was blown off.

"And who might you be?" the cult leader asked with feigned confidence. There was a sword around his waist, but he did not draw it. Alucard could see the sweat on his skin from across the room, however: stopping the bullet had cost the man, though how much it had cost him would soon be put to the test.

Alucard constructed and dropped about a dozen replies to that statement within a single second, some vague, some direct, but the hassle of answering was taken out of his hands entirely when a shining blade lanced through the air and transfixed the nearest cultist right through the chest.

" _'And if the people of the land do any ways hide their eyes from the man, when he giveth of his seed unto Molech, and kill him not: then I will set my face against that man,'_ "

If the dark glee with which he recited the Biblical passage wasn't hint enough, the maniacal grin in the shadows and the deep Scotts accent was more than enough to identify Father Alexander Anderson as the cultist slowly toppled to the floor.

"- _'and against his family, and will cut him off, and all that go a whoring after him, to commit whoredom with Molech, from among their people.'_ " the priest finished as he stopped dead at the bottom of the stairs, and another bayonet flashed into his hand to replace the one he'd thrown. "It seems your habit of playing with your food has left me something after all, monster."

Alucard laughed in unmitigated delight, though the narrowing of the priest's eyes behind his glasses and the uneasy shifting of the cultists in his peripheral told him that it was more mad than delighted, at least to them.

"They are rather irritatingly adept, for scum." he chuckled afterwards, aiming and firing the Casull again without looking as, once more, the cult leader blocked the bullet mere inches from his face.

Anderson ground his teeth when he saw that, knuckles creaking and cracking around the hilts of his bayonets.

" _'And the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards, to go a whoring after them, I will even set my face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people!'_ " he snarled, striding forward, and Alucard felt a little shiver go through him as his grin widened. He wondered if Anderson knew how delightfully suggestive he sounded when he was booming out the word "whore" in his deep, passionate voice, and decided not to enlighten him.

It'd be so much more amusing if he found out on his own.

Those words coincided with a hurtled storm of bayonets, however, and chaos exploded amongst the cult members as some of them used the same trick as their leader to equal or lesser effect, others simply dodging, and more than a few blades rebounding off the hastily summoned wards and striking other cultists.

Alucard waded into that chaos with a smirk, putting his Casull away again –since bullets had proved temporarily ineffective– and merely grabbing the nearest unwary cultist, dragging him up to the vampire's teeth and messily sucking him dry. It was unpleasant fare, much like the late Richard Hellsing: living blood was hot, true, but there was a difference between the warmth of a home-cooked meal and the warmth of greasy pub fare, as it were, and this was definitely the latter.

He spat the withered corpse out and watched the cultists murmur in shock.

"A vampire!"

"It's a vampire!"

"He's a vampire!"

Anderson darted him a look, and Alucard absently licked the blood from his chin as he explained.

"They think paradise will be ushered in by the death of all living creatures, and to that end, hail my kind as some form of messiah, I believe."

"Save us, lord!" one particularly stupid member cried frantically, pointing to Anderson, who was temporarily holding back to see how the situation progressed. "He'll kill us all!"

"Oh, I doubt that." Alucard purred, hooding his eyes and taking a step forward as more than a few of the cultists looked relieved. His smirk widened into a toothy grin as he took another step. "After all, there's a reasonable chance I'll kill you all first."

"Wh-what?" that same one quavered, and Anderson looked at him with a feral grin.

"Is that a _challenge_ , vampire?"

"Whoever kills more gets the first shot when this is all over." Alucard agreed amicably, before looking back at the trembling cultists with a grin that bared every last one of his inhumanly sharp teeth. "Unless you prefer to scurry back to the Vatican with your tail between your legs… _again_."

Anderson's ferocious laughter was his only answer as blades flashed in the dark, and Alucard quickly stepped back into the fight before he could lose too much ground.

It wasn't as simple as that, of course. The cultists did have magic, and once they got over their shock –after about a dozen of them had either been messily ripped apart by Anderson's bayonets or Alucard's teeth and hands– they put it to good use, casting crackling balls of energy or bolts that moved too fast for the human eye to see. That was favoring Alucard, since he also moved at that speed, and furthermore he could risk a hit or two, though both he and Anderson spent some –perhaps unnecessary– effort in twisting and dodging, and in the priest's case using a rather impressive flick or spin of his blades to catch whatever projectile was meant for him before either dropping the smoldering remnants of said blade or continuing unabated.

That was always the problem with cultists, mages, and sorcerers: unless you knew _exactly_ what they had been trained for or what kind of magic they were using, it was generally a good idea to avoid getting hit. However small the chance, there was always the chance that one's opponent had a spell you couldn't counter or survive, and prevention was the best cure. Magic, as proved by the glowing sigils on the back of Alucard's white gloves, was one of the few things even an ancient vampire had to be wary of.

Another annoyance was the storage boxes pushed to the edges of the room, many of which were soon aflame, and the corpses of those who had either lodged or worked here before the cultists came, which had been unceremoniously dumped to the side after they'd obviously been gutted and drained for the ineffective ritual.

Still, barring the odd missing limb or two, Alucard was swiftly whittling down the cultists –as was Anderson, he was pleased to see, hacking and slashing with a mad grin utterly at odds with his now-blood-spattered priest attire. It wouldn't do for his rival to be taken down by such paltry opponents as these, even if they did have the unpredictable edge of magic.

Speaking of which, a bolt hit him directly in the chest, and Alucard grinned wider as he briefly felt all his bones compress, crackling and crunching together gruesomely as his heart was pulped under the force of his own ribcage. Shadows threaded through his torso, inky and shimmering, and he lunged for the cultist who had cast the spell, ripping the human open with a casual flick of his wrist that blurred the air and cut into the cultist's chest like a sword. Frantically, with their dying breath, they hit him again and again with the same spell, as though a rapid barrage would do more damage, and Alucard rattled in amusement –the closest to laughter he could get with a crushed windpipe– as he stepped over the dying fool.

Boring, boring, so very boring. The cultists were just enough of a challenge to make wiping them all out immediately impossible, but it was all too pathetically easy to carve through them, even when the cultists worked together, even when they tried to hit either Alucard or Anderson with some of their most powerful spells. Anderson would dodge by a hairsbreadth, far more agile and precise than what you would expect in such a large man, and Alucard would merely take the hit and keep coming.

He was unfair like that.

Eventually, when the basement looked like a slaughterhouse and fire from missed spells was blooming all across the walls, climbing up to the ceiling as acrid smoke drifted everywhere, there was only one. The leader.

As he sent the last of the lieutenants flying across the room to crumple in a very literal sense across the far wall, Alucard turned, and frowned in mute disappointment to see Anderson had gotten there first.

"You've ruined everything!" the cult leader screamed as the priest advanced, dark power roiling around the smaller man and the broadsword he clutched. Alucard could sense at least a few departed souls around the man himself, and definitely some sort of physical enhancement from the blade. Pitiful fool.

The cult leader's blade was definitely enchanted, which he proved as he used it to swing and block clumsily, barely saving himself from disembowelment and decapitation in the same moment as Father Anderson wielded his dual bayonets with brutal efficiency, sparks flying and clashing as the cult leader was steadily forced to give ground. Clearly, he was no sort of fighter, and only the sword itself kept him from dying outright.

It must be a very good enchanted sword, then. Alucard hadn't seen the kind of skill his nemesis demonstrated in _centuries_ : people just didn't use swords anymore, much less hone their talent to perfection with them.

A pity. Oh, he liked his guns very much, but there was something in the raw skill and talent required for bladework that made Alucard long for his old broadsword, if only for a moment. There was no skill and little effort in merely pointing the muzzle of his gun at something and pulling a trigger.

Hmm. Perhaps Walter could come up with a suitably fiendish weapon, if Alucard put the notion to him. He'd love to see what the devious old man could do with blades, if he was this good at making guns.

Of course, with how Anderson was steadily pushing the cult leader back, the man was going to run into the burning walls at some point, and from the expression of a cornered rat on his face, he knew it.

Hmm…

Alucard grinned and pulled his Casull out of his duster again, taking aim and firing. Regrettably, the cultist wasn't quite distracted enough to have dropped his guard completely, and the bullets diverted, smashing into the man's shoulder, arm, and chest but not killing him outright as he gave a scream of pain and noxious, tainted blood sprayed the air, making Alucard's nose twitch.

"Stealing my kills now, abomination?!" Anderson snarled, not even out of breath. Alucard had to admire his stamina, since unlike himself, Anderson was still alive and had cut a goodly swath through the horde of cultists to boot. "I should've expected such cheap tricks from you!"

"Shut up!" the cult leader gasped, surprisingly still upright. His eyes held a manic, frightened gleam as he clutched his sword like it was a lifeline. It wouldn't save him, though. "Shut up! A religious _freak_ like you would never understand the glories of the undead!"

Anderson's snarl was a thing of beauty, deep and ferocious like some primordial beast. Alucard bared his teeth appreciatively at the sound of it, and shot again, as the cult leader deflected with a frantic swipe of his sword. The human was tiring, flagging, injured and losing blood quickly as these two apex predators circled him like sharks –and he knew it. His eyes had the glazed, panicked look Alucard had seen too many times to count, right before he closed in for a kill.

The man was doomed, he knew he was doomed, and there was no avenue of escape that he could see. He was dead, he just hadn't bothered to lay down yet.

The man screamed and charged Anderson, enchanted blade flying as it sought to find a gap in the larger man's defenses, a whirlwind of steel and sharp edges wielded, briefly, with impeccable skill.

Father Anderson didn't even take a step back. He met the charge head-on, as was his wont, and contemptuously flicked aside the cult leader's guard as a bayonet slid in towards the his hooded neck. Frantically, the man raised his other hand as a dark aura gathered around it and shot forward in a split second, hitting Anderson squarely in the chest only a moment before Anderson's blade all but decapitated the man.

Cult members now entirely dead, as the corpse of the leader fell to the ground, Anderson swiftly took a step back. Both he and Alucard paused for a moment, waiting to see what affect –if any– would occur from the hastily cast spell: Anderson for obvious reasons, Alucard because he didn't want to fight his nemesis if Anderson was going to be fighting him with any sort of hamper.

Nothing seemed to have happened. If there was physical damage, Anderson healed from it without Alucard noticing, and as the priest blinked warily, he didn't seem to be mentally altered either.

"Ineffective to the last." Alucard noted after about five minutes, and Anderson snorted.

"I killed more of them than you did, vampire, and you know it." he said, deciding to reinterpret that sentence so he could take offense, eyes starting to gleam with predatory anticipation as he flicked out a new bayonet to replace the one currently lodged in the cult leader's throat.

"If that's what you'd like to believe." Alucard answered, pulling out his gun with a grin.

Only to raise an eyebrow as Father Anderson's green eyes darted downwards briefly. It was a very quick movement, just a swift flick down before his gaze locked on Alucard's face again, but it was definitely there. Experimentally, Alucard widened his grin, showing more teeth, and watched as Anderson's gaze moved down again for another, longer look.

"My eyes are up here, Judas Priest." he said, amused.

As expected, Anderson's eyes snapped back up again instantly, and he scowled.

"And so what of it, vampire?" he asked, taking a step forward. Alucard's desire to laugh was briefly stymied when a bayonet impaled one of said eyes, with only a lightning-quick twist of his body saving the other as the blessed blade whisked past his cheek, tearing open a long gouge on his skull that _burned_ with the delightful sharp pain of a holy object.

He raised his gun and fired, grinning more naturally –though still with far more teeth than a human could manage– as it hit Anderson in the collarbone, shattering it and tearing through the ligaments and muscle beneath, briefly incapacitating one arm as Anderson snarled and hurled a cluster of bayonets towards his chest with the other.

It was annoying, but they were going to have to wrap this up quickly. The basement was now well and truly on fire, and regenerator or not, Anderson would probably be overcome by the smoke before too terribly long, since it clogged the lungs rather than injuring them outright, and Alucard didn't have the patience for him to keep collapsing and getting back up.

But Alucard didn't want to end this quite yet. Yanking the bayonet out of his eye with a sick _squelsh_ of regrowing flesh, he kept firing, picking out vital points that would slow the priest rather than stop him, since stopping someone with the regenerative powers they both possessed wasn't exactly easy.

Still, there were ways. Shooting joints left bone shrapnel and the metal bullet itself in a moving part, which slowed the process of healing as such debris was ejected or re-aligned, not to mention physically slowing the use of whatever limb he shot. Headshots also slowed the priest considerably as his brain reconstructed itself to the point where he was capable of movement, but Alucard was having a hard time targeting that area, as Father Anderson knew his weak points very well and was excellent at guarding them.

 _Anderson's_ strategy, of course, was to maim and cripple if he couldn't kill, and since the priest had the benefit of so much more projectiles –Alucard being limited to his bullet clips– the man was doing a fairly decent job of perforating Alucard like a sponge.

Alucard leapt backwards, his booted feet feeling his way amongst the slumped bodied expertly and without looking, and he snarled in annoyance, batting a falling piece of timber away as it clattered to the concrete ground in flames. The heat was pleasant, but the way Anderson was starting to hesitate, looking around, was not.

"Afraid of a little smoke, priest?" he taunted, and Anderson scowled at him from across a field of corpses and dancing flames, gripping his bayonets tighter.

Alucard frowned at the familiar flutter of bible pages, many of them igniting in the air as they wrapped around the priest, but Anderson still managed to turn the trick as he vanished from the basement, leaving a somewhat disappointed vampire in his wake.

His disappointment vanished in turn as there was a sharp whistling sound, and one of those delightful bayonets plunged through the smoke and flames, burying less than a foot from him. Clever, _clever_ priest…he hadn't left, merely retreated outside the building, and Alucard purred to himself in pleasure as he imagined the absolutely inhuman force it would've taken to hurl one of those blades though several stories of wood and concrete.

The least he could do is oblige Father Anderson's little invitation.

Melting into shadows, he quickly reformed on the lawn, watching in amusement as red flickered inside the lowest windows of the now-empty building and smoke poured out of every crack. It wouldn't be too long before the entire structure was up in flames, and he turned his back on it, searching along the last blade's trajectory for his priest.

Ah, there he is.

Pain exploded in Alucard's very being as a dozen or more bayonets impacted him less than a nanosecond after noticing the paladin, slamming him up against the not-quite-burning building and pinning his bleeding body there as the blades sunk deep into the wood and brick behind him from the sheer force of their collective momentum. Alucard enjoyed that brief spark of vulnerability, the heightened excitement that came from knowing that Alexander Anderson was fast and cunning enough to react to his sudden appearance, and strong enough to actually pin and damage his form. There was a chance he might lose if he didn't reform quickly, and Alucard enjoyed that challenge so very, very much.

He ripped himself free, snapping those agonizingly holy blades when he could and merely stepping away from the ones he couldn't, letting them slide through his body and remain in the wall, bullets singing through the air to cover his momentary weakness. Since they were in the open air now, neither of them had to hold back, and Alucard _grinned_ with unparalleled delight as they exchanged blows and blades, ripping up the turf around them and shattering parts of the building, sending out frequent sprays of the rich, heady blood he so loved –or his own dead, cold blood– when they connected, and explosions of brick, earth, glass, and splinters from the wall and ground when they missed.

Ah, what a night. The moon was full, battle was joined, and he had his beloved nemesis to dance with. The only thing that could possibly improve the situation would be a drink of fresh virgin's blood, and he could probably get _that_ if he tried hard enough, Father Anderson clearly valuing his vow of chastity more than some of his more distasteful counterparts. The blood soaking Anderson from his healed wounds smelled clean and new, mouthwateringly untouched and sizzling with the passion of his soul.

Alucard licked his lips at the thought, and was startled out of the comfortable rhythm of their fight when Anderson _faltered_ , for no reason he could see, eyes suddenly going wide. The vampire frowned and swiftly stepped back, opening some distance between them as his eyes darted around, briefly searching for some kind of outside cause and finding none.

Strange. Perhaps that spell _had_ had an effect on Anderson…?

"Feeling a little different, Judas Priest?" he drawled, smirking but narrowing his eyes at the man, who seemed startled.

Then, however, Anderson's brows drew down, and anger overcame surprise and confusion.

" _You_ did this to me-"

"I can assure you I've done nothing." Alucard said, more sharply than he intended, stiffening. A smirk teased at the corner of his mouth as he regained his aplomb. "Well, I've shot you enough, but that's certainly all, and nothing that hasn't happened before."

"I- you-" Father Anderson seemed more and more nervous, which was perfectly understandable. They were both becoming steadily more certain that whatever magic the priest had been hit with had indeed affected him somehow, and of course even magic wielded by _those_ sorts of fools could be dangerous.

What wasn't expected was the fact that Father Anderson was _blushing_.

Oh, it was subtle enough, but it was still undeniably _there_. True, the priest's skin tended to hide blushing better than someone with a lighter complexion, but, well. Alucard was a vampire. He tended to notice what blood did and especially where it went.

"My, my…" he murmured slowly. "And just what _kind_ of effect is this magic having on you, I wonder?"

Anderson looked at him, looked down, opened his mouth, but didn't say anything before he closed it again, his hand diving inside his coat. Almost immediately afterward he brought out his bible, and Alucard sighed in regret as the priest disappeared, likely this time for good.

How incredibly annoying. Still, he'll have something to tease the priest with later, and he supposed that that can be enough for tonight, brief as their clash had been.

* * *

What an awful night. Bad enough that he'd been sent to Britain to eliminate the unholy on such an unpleasantly hot, humid night, worse that he'd had to fight such disgustingly irredeemable scum, but to put the cap on Alexander's suffering for this evening, he'd actually managed to get hit by one of the scum's magic spells.

Oh, he hadn't been sure what it was at first –hell, he hadn't even been sure it had _worked_ – but he certainly knew now: the bloody heathen necromancer had cast some sort of witchcraft on him.

He couldn't stop staring at Alucard's damn _teeth_. Large, sharp, pointy fangs that any reasonable person would run screaming from. Up until tonight, he hadn't really thought much of them except in a detached way, as part of his normal fighting pattern: don't let the vampire get close enough to bury his teeth in any separate part of you. That was just common logic, even for a regenerator like him.

What's not common or normal at all is how he felt a _tug_ when he looked at the vampire tonight, an inviting sort of pull different from the usual feeling he had when glimpsing Alucard, the one that made him grin madly with the urge to sharpen his bayonets on the elder vampire's bones. It was something that called to him, coaxed him, something that…

Something that was centered on those damn _teeth_. No, those _fangs_. He knew what those cultists had been obsessed with, and he knew that whatever he was feeling now, it probably had more to do with the fact that Alucard was a vampire than it did anything else.

Maybe it was something other than what he was thinking. Lord, he _prayed_ it was something other than what he was thinking. Cursing him so that he would desire to be turned into the monsters he fought was a cruel revenge, and since his regeneration ability very nearly negated his ability to _be_ turned into a vampire, that curse would quite possibly be stuck with him throughout the rest of his unnaturally long lifespan. The craving would just get stronger, and stronger, and then…

Alexander quickly shook his head. It wasn't like that. It couldn't be like that, he couldn't be sure, not yet. If those blasphemous heathens had such a spell in their arsenal, surely they would start with that, not end with it. Wouldn't that make achieving their goal of creating a world of undead so much easier, if they made their victims willing and pliant?

The priest couldn't help but shudder as he wove the bible pages back into the once-empty book and kept moving, heading for his safe house. He _hated_ this, firstly how catastrophic it might be if whatever had hit him was truly damaging, but secondly for how the damn vampire would make fun of him the next time they met. Oh, he could just hear it now, and it made his own teeth scrape together.

Alexander was _good_. As sinful as pride was, he still was proud of his skill and his power, and it was a point of pride with him that he was, undeniably, the strongest and best Iscariot had to offer. He tried to temper that pride with humility, remind himself that focusing on how he was the best sword and shield for the faithful was more important than his own feelings, how he was but a speck in the eyes of God and one of many of His loyal soldiers and followers, and there was _honor_ in that, in being one of the most well-oiled and supportive cogs in the Almighty's machine.

But pride, like all sins, was persistent. Every time he crossed blades with Alucard, every time he did his damn best to beat that smirking vampire to a bloody pulp, pride thrilled and fluttered in his veins when he returned home, whether he forced the vampire to retreat or was forced into a retreat in his turn. It was wounded pride, bruised pride, true, just like tonight, but he was still proud that he had faced down this immortal, inhuman creature and so _nearly_ beat him.

His other missions were turning into boring, uneventful routine. Alexander refused to admit it and buried that feeling deep in the recesses of his mind, because he felt that it was at least slightly sinful in some way, but they _were_.

Ghouls, pathetic. Vampires, laughable. Werewolves, a joke.

Everything fell beneath his blades like the man-killing meat cleaver he was, and Alexander found himself increasingly dissatisfied until there was the inevitable mission that sent him somewhere back to the British Isles, and Alucard.

And then, oh, then he had a _fight_ on his hands, an actual duel between him and the vampire as they both struggled to cast the other down, and the fact it _was_ a struggle had Alexander's sinful pride glowing. Alucard, the legendary No-Life King, found _him_ to be a struggle, and the knowledge of how close he has sometimes come to cutting the monster's unholy life short had Alexander grinning, though some small part of him felt slightly guilty at how much he seemed to enjoy he and his archenemy's fights.

But the teeth. His mind kept circling back to them, persistently, making chills crawl down his arms. How long and sharp they were, imagining how it must feel when they sank into flesh…

An unnamable feeling raced through him, sharp, excited, anticipatory. _Not_ the correct reaction upon imagining pain, least of all when it was someone biting him, and _absolutely_ not when that someone was a vampire. And that vampire being _Alucard_ of all people…no.

Alexander shuddered. The subsequent mockery alone made such an idea intolerable. Alucard was a vampire, and like all his kind, his body being dead severely cut down on how much his libido controlled him. Oh, he undoubtably _felt_ lust, just like all his hedonistic fellow vampires, but it was something Alucard could control or dismiss far easier than a living man.

Hence, Alucard being Alucard –unsympathetic and an avid mocker of perceived weakness to the extreme– if he learned that Alexander had or was losing control of his own desires –sexual or otherwise– it was bound to open up some extremely unwelcome taunts.

Maybe it wasn't what he thought. Maybe it was just a…just something to take care of an assailant. He had encountered such spells before, ones designed to drive an attacker to self-mutilating madness so that even if the sorcerer died, their opponent would not outlive them for long. Generally, they didn't affect him, and on the extraordinarily rare occasions that they did, he could regenerate, so once the curse was "fulfilled," it stopped affecting him anyways.

In any case, at least testing the waters in that direction would be a good idea. He wouldn't have to do anything drastic, of course, but if whatever curse that necromancer had hit him with was reconfiguring him somehow to inflict or seek pain, a small wound would definitely at least give Alexander an indication of that.

Self-harm was unhealthy though, even for him, and Alexander resolved to take some small penance for it later as he grit his teeth and summoned a bayonet. He then plunged it through the palm of his other hand, wincing at the bright, hot sting of pain, before he wrenched the blade out and let the wound heal.

Nothing felt different. His freshly-torn nerves tingled and buzzed a little as they reformed, like they always did, the same kind of pins-and-needles sensation he got when his legs fell asleep. More importantly, stabbing through his hand didn't give him any sense of satisfaction or pleasure (thanks be for small mercies), and less encouraging, it didn't change the way he though about Alucard –or his teeth, or them biting down on him– at all.

Men of the cloth weren't supposed to swear, but Alexander was sorely tempted for a moment.

The swear words building up behind his tongue had only grown by the time he was sitting in a waiting room within the Vatican science building a day later, hands clenching and unclenching into tense fists on the fabric of his trousers. He didn't like being here, and everyone here knew it. Part of that is simple rationality –he shed much of his human limitations by the treatments they gave him here, and what they gave they could also presumably take away, and no one (least of all himself) liked to feel weakened and vulnerable. Another significant factor was that, as the sole successful regenerator, he was a bloody science project, and all these devout scientists (he has to keep reminding himself of that) keep staring at him like he's laid out on their tables for perusal. It's their natural curiosity and interest in scientific phenomena and _not_ something worth losing his temper over.

Even if it does feel sometimes like they're staring at a dangerous freak specimen through a glass wall.

After all, when all was said done, there was a reason why he was the only regenerator. It wasn't budget, it wasn't funding, it wasn't the scientists: it was that he had been the only test subject to emerge at least reasonably sane, and his sanity, as enemies and comrades alike liked to point out, could be considered dubious at best. The bloodthirst (in a strictly metaphorical sense) and the way he enjoyed the kill, the hunt, the thrill of combat…it wasn't normal.

Granted, positively no one that was ordained as a member of Iscariot could broadly be considered _normal_ , so their words didn't bother him as much as they maybe should.

_Let he who is without sins cast the first stone._

Still, there was accepting that he –and everyone else who donned the uniform of Section XIII– had issues, and there was sitting in a lab as passing scientists looked at him with macabre, detached, singular curiosity, like he had no mind or eyes of his own to notice their rude stares.

And, granted, most of the time he could (and did) accept that, exhale slowly and murmur a prayer as he waited for whatever checkup or upkeep or medical appointment it was to start or be finished, but this time he was sitting and waiting to hear the results of his own mistake of getting hit by an absolutely incompetent cult leader, results that may very well alter his mind or his pattern of behavior, permanently.

Wrath was as much of a sin as pride, but Alexander felt he had adequate reason to be in a temper right now.

"Father Anderson?" He jerked his head up with an affirmative grunt as the nurse came bustling through the door. "We're ready for you now."

He followed her back into a deceptively plain medical-looking office, where an ancient computer had been booted up and text he hadn't the faintest hope of understanding danced across the screen.

"So, how do I get rid of it?" he asked the man seated behind said computer, not bothering with any pleasantries. He knows why he's here and they know why he's here, and it would be foolish to waste time. He just wanted to get this over with as fast as possible.

"So far as we've been able to tell," the man began, looking at the computer and clicking the mouse a few times, which apparently did something. The text rapidly scrolling across the screen didn't change, and Alexander had given up trying to interpret it, since half seemed to be coding and the rest Ancient Greek. "-it's a behavioral spell."

"Meaning…?"

"Meaning it's intent was to get you to alter your pattern of behavior. You said in your report it was a last-ditch effort by the magician?"

"Aye." he said tightly.

"Right…well, ah, there is one more thing. Was there a vampire within the area when this spell was cast?"

Foreboding wrapped around his heart as a cold sweat prickled over the back of Alexander's neck. The man should know. Alexander had written the usual field report and sent it in before his flight back to Rome, _the man should know_. Anyone who was studying this case should've read that report, and anyone who _had_ read it would know that Alucard had been on location during his mission.

"Hellsing's pet abomination was there." he said at length, guarded. "Alucard."

Silence rang in the room.

The doctor looked away. The nurse nervously adjusted her glasses.

The foreboding in Alexander's grew into certainty, and that certainty was that nothing good was going on. He looked at the computer for help, but it, of course, offered him nothing, and finally turned a stern glare upon the man sitting before it. Alexander was well over six feet tall and built to match: he could do looming menace very well, even when he sometimes didn't mean to.

The man squirmed, and Alexander folded his arms and raised an eyebrow in the look that generally had the disobedient adolescents at his orphanage pouring out apologies and excuses in equal measure.

"W-we believe that this was a dark spell originating sometime in the 10th century AD in the Balkan region!" the man blurted, caving under the pressure of that look. "Used in cult activities for the worshippers of the undead upon their…less zealous members."

"Meaning?"

"I-it's a vampire-entrapment spell!" the nurse broke in excitedly, clearly caught up in the scientific fervor of the discovery and slightly forgetful that the subject was in the room. "It makes you want to-"

"It is designed to hone in on a particular vampire, the nearest, and…force the particular subject, or victim really, to…adjust their attitude towards the undead." the man said over her, flashing Alexander an apologetic look. "It makes them want to be bitten."

Alexander was smart enough to figure things out from there and inhaled sharply, dragging his hand down his face. Never in his entire life had he wanted to swear this badly. But the nurse seemed young enough to be an intern and he didn't want to scare her –he could do it later, at home, behind closed doors and probably into a pillow, since he would be screaming things at full-volume that his orphans _certainly_ did not need to hear.

"So you saying that that pathetic undead-lover cursed me to crave the bite of Hellsing's misbegotten pet." he growled when he had his temper more or less under control.

"Yes, sir."

" _How do I fix it_."

"Ah…" The man looked at the nurse. The nurse looked back blankly.

 _Oh no_. Oh no, no, _no_.

"We're trying to get on that, sir." the man said after a moment. "There's been no progress so far, but we've requisitioned materials from our Austro-Hungarian branches and hope to find something in that collection."

Right. Right. This is fine, it's literally not even been a day since he was cursed. This is the Vatican, the finest institution for defeating evil and wicked magic in the entire world. They'll find the solution soon. He will be _fine_.

"Do you need any…samples?" Alexander grudgingly held out his arm, but somewhat to his relief, the man shook his head. Collecting blood or tissue was comparatively simple for a regenerator, but all the same, he couldn't shake the instinctive revulsion towards being sliced open and/or stuck with needles.

_Now if only he could think about Alucard's fangs the same way._

He shook off those thoughts with a shudder. "When should the books arrive?"

"Er, no more than five days." the other man said, shifting the mouse a little and trying not to meet Alexander's eyes. "You should probably not, ah, do anything that might result in a vampire encounter. I'd strongly recommend against hunting."

"What, is the spell going to try and find a new target?" Alexander scoffed.

"It may be possible that _any_ vampire bite would do." the nurse interrupted, looking nervous. "And we're not quite sure what the curse will do to you if you do get bitten."

He dragged in a long, heavy sigh from deep inside his chest, then let it out.

"I understand."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _He had attended the Scholomance, however briefly:_
> 
> In Romanian folklore, the Scholomance was a school of black magic in Transylvania, allegedly run by the Devil. In Bram Stoker's _Dracula_ , Dracula apparently studied there, as did other members of his family. There's no evidence for this being true in Hellsing, but it _would_ handily explain some of how Alucard is on SUCH a different level than other vampires. It doesn't all have to be mad science in the Hellsing basement, right?


	2. Chapter 2

Three days in and Alexander was close to clawing at the walls. His very veins seemed to _itch_ , and on the rare occasions he scratched at the itch until his skin actually split and blood oozed out, there was a fractional second of relief, eliminating any doubt that the itching was due to the curse.

Thank the Lord he wore gloves, otherwise bits of his own skin and crusted blood would've been jammed under his nails ages ago, and as it was, even with the gloves as a reminder, it was hard not to constantly itch at the nearest vein or artery. He didn't want to think about the effect such a curse would have on a normal human who _couldn't_ survive accidentally tearing open a major vein as they feverishly and futilely scratched at their itching blood beneath the skin. As it was, his temper was noticeably shorter and he was having a hard time being around his orphans, since he had to constantly fight down the urge to scratch at his pulsing veins or risk confusing and possibly scaring them, if he managed to tear his skin open again. Still, he didn't shirk his duties, and to a certain extent it was a _relief_ to have to guard himself so closely, to know even as it tormented him that he was refusing to feed the curse as he shouted encouragement to the children playing football in the yard or led them in lessons or helped them with an art project.

It was the past few nights that were the worst, lying in bed with no distractions whatsoever, his blood seething and itching in his veins until he almost wanted to tear his skin open with his _own_ teeth, just to get enough relief to sleep. The Mother Superior he worked alongside had already commented on the bags under his eyes, and of course lack of sleep hardly helped his current condition.

Another thing that _wasn't_ helping was the fact that the research division had indeed gotten the requested materials on the second day, and found absolutely nothing. He'd volunteered to page through the materials himself, but had been rejected on the grounds that he didn't have the same knowledge and experience as the teams that usually did such projects. It took all sorts to make a world, of course, and those people would undoubtably die within moments if confronted with an actual vampire, but that didn't make him feel any less useless. Or, indeed, any less cabin-crazy. He'd gone on longer stints without hunting, of course, much longer, but usually he had something other than the boiling itch of a curse in his body to focus on.

To a certain extent, Maxwell's phone call on the morning of the fourth day was something of a relief.

_"-I need you to serve as a bodyguard for the meeting with that Hellsing sow."_

And yet, at the same time it really, really wasn't.

"Sir, you are aware of my condition?" Alexander ground out, rubbing his aching forehead and resisting the urge to dig his fingernails into and under the thin skin there. "The curse?"

 _"God protects His holy servants in times of need."_ Maxwell said pompously, then sighed. _"I would spare you this if I could, but Renaldo is getting old, and I don't trust anyone else to be able to stand up against her vampire."_

Alexander winced as every vein in his body seemed to seethe and pulse hotly in unison. If mentioning Alucard obliquely did this to him, he wasn't sure he wanted to see what would happen if he faced the vampire in person.

And yet, Maxwell was right. If Hellsing decided to move aggressively and summon her vampire, Alexander was really the only agent to counter him. In a meeting between rivals pretending to be equals, Maxwell _had_ to have him along with to maintain equal footing.

 _"Also, this is a meeting to discuss the cult that caused said condition, and if you failed to attend, it may be seen as a sign of weakness on our part."_ Maxwell continued. _"I don't want them to know how badly it's affected you…the Hellsing family has ties to sorcery as well as their vampire, after all."_

"I'm fine." Alexander said, and made a note to repent for the lie at the soonest possible convenience.

 _"Of course you are, which is why the Mother Superior told me that your clothes keep getting spotted with blood these past few days despite you having no missions."_ Maxwell drawled, making him wince again, this time in guilt. _"Just don't do it at the meeting."_

Alexander groaned softly. "Just make it as quick as you can," he not-quite-begged, and Maxwell made a sympathetic noise –rare, out of him.

 _"May God be with you, Anderson."_ he said, in what was a clear end to the conversation.

" _In Nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti_. Amen." Alexander replied before they both hung up, ignoring the _very_ blasphemous thought that if Alucard was going to be present at the meeting, he wasn't even sure if God could help him now.

* * *

Clenching his teeth so hard he was half-afraid he'd get lockjaw, Alexander stood behind Maxwell's chair, gloved hands balled into fists at his sides and forcing every inch of his indomitable will into not scratching, not itching, not _clawing_ at his arteries as he so viscerally longed to do, rip apart his skin and pop open his veins as this seething, boiling hot blood poured down his body and was replaced with new. Maybe then it would be cooler, calmer, colder, but of course after five days of enduring this _madness_ he knew that the blood he regained would be as hot as the blood that had left him. Itching was futile, but his body craved relief that he wasn't going to get otherwise.

His teeth creaked. Relief he was _absolutely_ not going to get otherwise.

Alexander had very nearly begged Maxwell to keep this meeting as peaceable as possible, not give the Hellsing woman any excuse to call in her pet vampire, which Maxwell had, thankfully, agreed to rather easily. Neither of them liked to share that creature's air, and with Alexander doing his best to imitate a statue right now, no provocation was coming from their end either. The meeting was proceeding apace, and everything was fine.

Except for the bloody fact that _no one knew how to fix him_.

"Unfortunately, due to your paladin's…usual zeal, no cult members remain alive to help us in discovering the nature of their activities." Sir Hellsing said with measured annoyance, tapping her fingers together as her icy eyes glinted behind her glasses.

Maxwell looked at him, and Alexander managed to unclench his jaw.

"As much your vampire's fault as mine." he said tersely across the table, and the corner of her mouth subtly turned down.

"Alucard absorbed several, but they were low-ranking enough that they have no knowledge of the spell their leader cast." she returned. A sly look came across her face. "Are you sure Father Anderson is uncorrupted by the curse, Maxwell? He seems unusually quiet."

Both Iscariots glared bloody murder across the table, but the Hellsing woman was, as usual, immune to such looks. She chuckled softly and clipped the end off one of her foul cigars, before raising it between two fingers for her butler to ignite.

"Just an observation." she murmured as she drew it down to her lips.

" _Observations_ aside," Maxwell said after a deep inhale. "You're still no closer to finding a cure?"

"We already know a cure." Sir Hellsing said, making his heart leap, before it abruptly plummeted down to his feet as she said, "And so do you."

"I am not letting a vampire-!" Alexander began hotly, before snapping his mouth closed. He couldn't say the fatal word _bite_. The heat in his veins seemed to writhe at even the thought of it, so intense that he had to be flushed and sweating.

Sir Hellsing shrugged, a slight frown marring her face. "Well, then we are in difficulties." she noted, tapping out some ash into the nearby tray. "This is older magic than Hellsing has familiarity with, and you say your science and research divisions have made no progress."

Only the fact that it'd be taken as a sign of weakness kept Alexander from groaning. All this, and they were _still_ no closer to a cure?

The meeting continued, with more barbs being met or halfheartedly deflected on both ends. No, the cult didn't seem to have any branches. No, the books they recovered had nothing on the sort of spell that had affected him. No, neither organization was willing to allow the other access to what research they _did_ have. Yes, he was fine. Yes, the situation could persist for some time longer, if necessary.

He lost interest as the meeting finally moved on from his condition and focused on the actual cultists themselves, discussions of locations and black markets and illicit networks flying thick and fast over his head as Maxwell and Sir Hellsing hid disdain behind their hands of cooperation. He had nothing to contribute to this conversation but casual menace, warning Sir Hellsing not to get too comfortable even if this was her so-called territory.

Instead, he focused on things he could do to stymie the further maddening influence of the curse. He'd already been chased out of standing in the food freezer by the Mother Superior, but surely no one at Iscariot could complain if he did the same? It wasn't as though he could actually die of hypothermia, and the chill temperature did seem to do _something_ for the restless itch of the curse.

Maybe he could have Maxwell freeze him in ice until they found a cure.

Alternatively –and this he shied from even in thought– but it was technically possible to put him in a state where he was unresponsive enough to ignore the curse. The trouble with that plan, aside from it's proliferate use of drugs, was that getting enough drugs into him that the dosage wouldn't merely lift his inhibitions and make him act to _fulfill_ the curse might be tricky. Also, as a regenerator, keeping him drugged was an expensive and largely futile exercise: it simply took too much to keep him down for any length of time, which was vastly inconvenient whenever he had a headache.

Perhaps he could-

Alexander's mind froze, his muscles froze, _everything_ froze when he saw a whisper of red as Sir Hellsing and Maxwell rose, and he belatedly realized the meeting had ended. Immediately, his eyes jerked away, and he waited tensely as Maxwell moved to leave, keeping close behind him and resolutely ignoring everything else. It was a dangerous tactic for a bodyguard to take, but Alexander found that he simply couldn't care right now. Alucard was on a leash, and like any dog, he wouldn't act unless provoked by a threat to his master –a threat that Alexander was in no way interested in providing right now.

Despite the very real problems of actually leaving him in proximity with certain befanged abominations, Maxwell left him behind on the curb, owing to the fact that Alexander was too tall to fit inside the sleek black car he had ordered. Not for the first time, Alexander cursed his height as he was left to wait for the next one, venting his angry energy by pacing back and forth impatiently near the stairs to the imposing government building.

"Leaving so soon, Judas Priest?" Alucard's voice oozed over the threshold, and Alexander winced as his veins all unanimously flushed with heat, a fine sweat breaking out across his skin. As he'd suspected, facing the target of the curse was exponentially worse than merely enduring it.

He didn't answer, refusing to be baited, and kept pacing impatiently. He caught the sense of Alucard's own silence as the vampire paused, measuring and curious all at once. It wasn't like Alexander to remain silent after a taunt, and they both knew it, but with the actual meeting over and the hours of pent-up stress and furious tension built up in his system, Alexander didn't care about posturing any longer.

"Why am I not surprised that Iscariot hides even the existence of any weaknesses." the vampire drawled next, the familiar sound of his booted feet coming as he descended the stairs. "You really are quite the sight to see."

Alexander ignored him, and the next silence was puzzled. He'd had a sense for how Alucard thought and reacted for some time now, and built on it every time they met: it was one of the reasons he was such a fearsome opponent. His natural instinct for understanding how vampires would tick, matched with personal experience, was more than enough to tell Alexander the gist of Alucard's mood without even looking at him.

Thank god he didn't have to look at him.

Alucard kept a calculated distance from him, not interrupting the actual line of Alexander's pacing, but the vampire did stand deliberately close when he got to the curb, prompting Alexander to look up, to notice him, to react, to _fight_. He was like a bloody cat and all Alexander wanted was for him to _go away_ and stop making his blood feel like it was on fire.

"So," Alucard began when he stopped right in front of him, but trailed off sharply as Alexander turned to continue pacing. The sudden silence was alarmed, tense, and Alexander hoped it was enough to make Alucard seek out his erstwhile master and wrench whatever details he could pry out of her, knowing his nemesis was in no mood to oblige him.

"Anderson-" Alucard grabbed his sleeve impatiently, stopping him, and every drop of blood in Alexander's veins seemed to ignite.

Panic and instinct flared in unison: he jerked his arm back, so fast and so violently that the vampire was actually shoved sideways a little before he regained his consummate balance.

"Don't _touch_ me." Alexander hissed, whirling to face him, and Alucard blinked, before raising his open hands in a pose of deliberate neutrality, accepting his boundaries. Alexander was half-shocked the vampire even knew how to do that, since the very idea was so contrary to his nature.

"You need help." Alucard said, and two for two, it was in a _normal_ voice, without a trace of mockery in his expression. It was very hard to focus on his actual expression, though, and it took an effort for Alexander to force his gaze to the side, keeping the vampire in his peripheral vision only. Dangerous, yes, but it was either that or possibly lose control, and of the two, risk of injury was definitely a better option than being (or getting himself!) bitten.

"I don't need help, vampire, and especially not _your_ help." he spat.

"Maybe you do, considering you can't even meet my eyes." came Alucard's amused voice. Oh, it wasn't the look of his bedamned _eyes_ that Alexander was avoiding. "Come on. What's the harm in telling me?"

"Aside from the fact that you'll mock me until the day I kill you?"

Alucard rolled his eyes, and grabbed Alexander by the collar before he could blink, yanking him forward. Vertigo spun around them for a second, and when Alexander flailed and managed to find purchase, he found it in what felt like a plaster wall, in pitch darkness.

"Alucard!" he snarled, and found himself jerked to an unsettling halt when he tried to move. Looking down, he realized that at least half the darkness came from some kind of eldritch shadows coiling over his body, binding him in place so thoroughly that barely a glimpse of his clothing could be seen. Only his cross was free, the shadows jerking and fizzling away as they seethed around it, and his gloved hands, startlingly white against the blackness.

"If you found yourself more talkative, perhaps I wouldn't have to interrogate you in a broom closet." Alucard's deep voice came from beyond the shadows, and Alexander surged against the inky darkness surrounding him, panic building beneath his long years of training and experience. He had never experienced this from Alucard before –he knew this living shadow was a form he could take, but the vampire had never _used_ it on him combatively. It felt like a lead blanket, heavy and paralyzing as it cocooned his body and held him still. Dimly, he could sense Alucard standing in front of him, and at the very least it was easier to actually look at the man when he was nothing but an indistinct form. "Now, why don't you tell me about this curse?"

"I swear to Christ I will _eviscerate_ you-"

"Under ordinary circumstances, you'd be able to burn these away with that holy magic of yours." Alucard said over him, a clinical twist to his pale lips as he studied Alexander like he was a bug pinned on a card. "But you can't concentrate enough for that right now, can you?"

"Fucking vampire," Alexander hissed, subsiding for a brief moment to regain his energy. "-let me go _now_ , or-"

"Or what, Judas Priest?" Alucard tilted his head: his ruby eyes glittered maliciously in the darkness. "You aren't exactly at your best, today. Can you even summon your blades?"

He found an answer to that when one sank hilt-deep into his hip, which was the best angle Alexander could manage with his arms pinned to his sides. A rumbling chuckle echoed inside the cramped closet as Alucard pulled the bayonet out and dropped it from his smoking hand.

"So you aren't entirely helpless." he mused, red eyes visibly tracking up at down Alexander's form. "In the interest of a fair fight, won't you tell me what curse this is that's wound its way through you?"

"What?" Alexander groaned tiredly. "Your master hasn't told you?"

"She didn't see it relevant. But _this_ ,"

The vampire's voice was almost awed, reverential, and Alexander stiffened as cold fingers looped around his clerical collar, straightening it, tugging his head forward a little when those fingers suddenly clenched.

"I'm impressed."

Alexander's mind raced as he did his best to avoid thinking about that cool touch and how it made him feel, the tingle that spread outwards from the few fingers tucked _inside_ his collar, touching his skin. What could Alucard see that Hellsing had missed? The vampire was so old, so unnatural…it was possible his third eye could perceive something that humans would miss.

"What's so impressive about it?" he said after a moment, cautiously.

Alucard chuckled, and a startled, involuntary noise whisked out from between Alexander's teeth as one of those cold hands moved to cup over his forehead.

"I can see every vein." Alucard murmured. "Every vein, every artery, every vessel of blood in your body. Magic twists through them like fire, bringing them all alight."

The hand on his forehead was removed, but Alexander tensed as a cold finger touched the base of his throat, moving down over his pectoral muscles, tracing a slow, deliberate line downwards. It paused, and came to a final halt over his sternum.

"I can even see your heart, glowing like a coal in your chest."

He jerked in futile unease within the shadows, and Alucard's finger flicked away when Alexander's cross touched it, a soft unearthly hiss marking the contact between unholy creature and holy icon.

The vampire tilted his head, and Alexander could _feel_ his grin, even in the dark, sharp and serrated like a knife.

"A curse that has saturated its host _this_ completely…I'm not sure any human could resist this long without going completely mad. As always, my nemesis, you strive to impress."

Alexander opened his mouth, then closed it blankly. He felt like he had just run up against a brick wall. Alucard? Complimenting him? Genuinely? None of those things fit together, and yet here they all were, laid out for his examination in the dark.

Even though things like this belonged in the shadows –tucked away and forgotten, private and ignored– he still wasn't quite sure what to make of this subtle shift in their dynamic. Alucard respected him and his ability, this he had known for quite some time, and he might, maybe, admit that this respect was returned, strictly in terms of battle prowess.

But a naked, blatant compliment?

No. That was new.

He wasn't entirely sure he disliked it, and _that_ made him eager to shove it from his mind as quickly as possible. He didn't need to go feeding the curse, not _now_ , not when Alucard was literally right in front of him. His mind scrambled to find another avenue of conversation, before the waiting blackness all around him tempted him to do or say things that he shouldn't.

"So you can actually see the curse, vampire?"

"Mhm." Alucard hummed in acknowledgment, his voice once again holding that detached, fascinated quality. Alexander could both feel and see the weight of Alucard's gaze in those glowing red eyes, scrawling up and down his face and body. "It's quite pretty, in a way."

"Don't call me pretty." Alexander groaned, and the vampire tilted his head again, a wry grin on his face.

"Why not? It's true."

It took a few seconds for Alexander's mind to reconnect after hearing that statement, and when it did, he felt his face burning with a heat that, for once, had nothing to do with the curse.

"You and your fascination with _blood_ , you undead monster!" he choked out furiously, red-faced, and Alucard laughed as though he'd said something hilarious.

"There is a certain aesthetic beauty in the raw human form." he purred, fingers once more sliding over Alexander's collar, neatening it with mocking care, straightening it from the effects of the priest's occasional violent twisting. "To see the veins of a living body glowing like filaments of lightning is, in a very real sense, _pretty_. Your Bible says the body is a temple, does it not?"

"You have _never_ cared about what is written in the Holy Book." Alexander spat, trying to ignore his climbing pulse as he once again felt the vampire's icy touch. That damn curse…

"You'd be surprised." Alucard answered absently. "In any case, I find from my own personal experience that the human body is indeed very much like a temple –something light, intricate, perfected, and made to be _broken_."

Alexander swallowed as he felt Alucard's grip tighten on his collar, the vampire's eyes flaring a brief, excited crimson in the darkness. However truthful Alucard may or may not be in his assessment of the curse, Alexander _was_ too distracted by it to accurately use his holy wards, or even summon more than his bayonets. The curse was a constant gnawing in the back of his head, keeping him from fighting properly, from searing these shadows off his body and turning the vampire into a wretched bloody _mess_ for his master to find.

In other words, he was pinned until Alucard chose to let him go, and Alexander was not liking that one little bit.

"So you know what the curse is." he finally growled. "You've satisfied your damn curiosity, so let me _go_."

Alucard laughed, the sound bouncing around the dark space in a way that told Alexander the shadows had probably climbed the walls and door as well, sealing off any noise that might come from within the closet. How reassuring.

"I've satisfied myself that you are, as always, in possession of an _obnoxiously_ indomitable will." Alucard said almost fondly. "I've satisfied myself that the curse has seeped into you so thoroughly that it would take a miracle to pry it out without fulfilling its conditions. But as to what those conditions are…"

He leaned closer, and Alexander couldn't help but tense as he felt Alucard's face hover next to his own. It was hair-raisingly unnatural to have a vampire this close, to know that there was a man less than a few inches away from his face and yet not _feel_ anything natural, not a ghost of warm air from his breath or the oppressiveness of his body heat. Alucard was cold and undead and he only took in air to speak, or out of his own perverse sense of whimsy.

"That, I haven't satisfied myself on at all." Alucard murmured. "Your pulse is climbing, Judas Priest, and you won't look at my face. Are those two things connected, I wonder?"

" _Alucard_." Alexander hissed furiously, once again making a brief, futile attempt to struggle inside the crushing grip of the shadows. It was even less effective now, with the vampire's hands knotted in his clerical collar and Alucard's face much too close to his neck, hovering curiously around his jaw.

"The curse is in your blood." Alucard continued thoughtfully. He pulled back, tilting his head up as his red eyes flashed. "Tell me what it is. I might help."

Alexander snorted.

"You, help me." he said with the exact amount of derisiveness such a ludicrous suggestion deserved.

Alucard shrugged. "Call it self-indulgence." he said, straightening up again. "You can hardly give me a proper fight in this condition, so I may as well circumvent whatever ridiculous notions of propriety you're holding onto and remove this curse myself."

The priest bared his teeth, his arm twitching convulsively within the shadows, so much so that he managed to jerk it forward an inch before they brought him to a halt.

"Let me out of these shadows and I'll show you _exactly_ how much of a fight I can give." he snarled. He had finally adjusted to the near-total darkness of this enclosed space: enough to pick apart where Alucard was and, dimly, what his expressions were, and that was really all he needed. He could rip Alucard into a dozen tiny pieces, show him exactly what Alexander thought of this random bodysnatching and far-too-invasive conversation.

Alucard's only response was to raise an eyebrow.

"The very fact you need me to release the shadows myself tells me you aren't at your best." he pointed out dryly. "Come on, Judas Priest. I promise I won't hold it over your head."

Alexander clamped his mouth shut and glared.

"I know you want to tell me. It can't be comfortable, having a curse seethe through you like this." Alucard briefly lifted one of his hands, the back to Alexander as the sigil flared a bloody red, glowing for a moment in the dark. "I'm used to the pinch, but mine is meant to confine, to control. Yours is decidedly more _aggressive_."

Alexander's eyes flicked away for a moment, unable to stop his involuntary reaction, even though he knew Alucard was watching closely and could see in the dark far better than his human counterpart.

"What's the harm in telling me the nature of your curse?" Alucard asked, tilting his head in a way that coaxed, invited, as he lowered his hand back to the priest's collar. "I promise I won't take advantage of you."

It was Alexander's turn to raise an eyebrow.

"You – _cocooned_ me to a wall with your damn shadows."

"Would you still be here if I hadn't?" Alucard replied smoothly. The worst part about his eyes finally having adjusted was the fact that Alexander could see his mouth, his _teeth_ , human-shaped for once, except for the abnormally-long incisors. It was vague, grey, blurry, but he could still _see_ and with his blood racing and boiling through his veins, it was _all_ he could see.

"Judas Priest."

Blood was pulsing, screaming through his veins like the roar of the ocean.

"Anderson."

Alucard was cold and dead, his teeth would probably be icy as they pierced through skin and brought a numbing chill to this bedamned _heat_ crawling and clawing through his veins. A blessed, cool, final cold that would spread like meltwater through his body…

"Anderson!"

Alexander gasped involuntarily as Alucard shoved with those hands twisted in his collar, slamming the back of his head against the wall. Regenerator or no, he still had functioning nerves, and they made him blink as pain exploded across the back of his head. A normal human might have collapsed due to that concussion: as it was, the world tilted and swayed a moment as he winced and squinted through the pain of the back of his skull reknitting itself.

Alucard was frowning when he swam back into vision again, lips curled tightly over his teeth. Alexander didn't know if he felt relieved or disappointed.

"Tell me." Alucard said. "This has gone from an annoyance to an inconvenience."

Alexander dragged in a deep breath, obscurely grateful for the vampire snapping him out of his daze, even if he wouldn't admit it. His chest pressed against the tight bonds of the shadows before he exhaled slowly, Alucard watching him like a hawk for every moment of it.

"Bite." he finally said, defeated. "Cursed to crave a vampire's bite."

Alucard hummed quietly, the note surprised and slightly wary.

"But not turning?" he pressed, and Alexander shook his head.

"Tenth century AD, apparently used in the Balkan region to induce reluctant recruits." he said wearily. "Happy now?"

Alucard chuckled softly, and abruptly let go of his collar, letting Alexander relax back down the tiniest fraction.

"I haven't run across that one in ages." he said in amusement. Alexander's heart jolted.

"What?!"

"It may surprise you to know that my unlife hasn't all been bloodshed and battlefields." Alucard said, still grinning, though he was at least making a cursory attempt to block his teeth from Alexander's direct line of vision. "I'm familiar with this curse. As you said, generally used by undead-loving fools to convert their more intelligent members into being as slavishly devoted as they are, or give their vampiric patron easier feeding access."

Alexander narrowed his eyes. "But not vampires." he said, noticing the omission.

"No." Alucard scoffed. "Why bother? We have ample alternative methods to entice someone into a bite."

"I'm well aware of that." Alexander growled, remembering the chaos, bloodshed, betrayal, and fear left behind by the few survivors of such events. All too often, it was something he was sent to clean up, and it was a singularly unpleasant job, as the few human survivors had been led quite far astray by the vampire's hypnotism or seductions.

"Oh, _are_ you?" Alucard purred in delight, his voice suggestive, and Alexander swallowed as his face went red.

"Shut up." he hissed. "Just- you know what curse this is, so tell me how to avert it."

"You know full well what the cure is."

"Something _other_ than that." Alexander insisted desperately.

"There isn't one." Alucard said, making his heart drop. The vampire's face was calm, unruffled even, which only made the awful truth all the more plausible. Alucard could twist words like any wicked creature, but he grinned when he did, or his eyes would spark, challenging and charming. This was…blunt. Almost sympathetic.

"You'll keep craving and craving, until eventually, you break. It wasn't meant to be cured. It wasn't even meant to endure this long, because the victims would be bitten or dead –or both– usually within a few hours of the infliction."

Alexander swallowed thickly.

"I could bite you." Alucard continued, quieter. "I could even make it pleasant. I could do it _now_ , and you could fly back to the Vatican in a peaceable state of mind."

Temptation coursed through his veins, thick and hot like the curse. Alucard was _right there_ , and he was right, it would take no more than a minute or so before he was done, he was _free_ , and he could actually think and fight and _move_ again without a constant fixation on the vampire's damn fangs.

Alucard was silent, waiting. He didn't move closer or step away, caught in stasis as he awaited Alexander's decision.

He inhaled shakily.

"Or?" he asked, and a flash of disappointment seemed to cross Alucard's face.

"Or you could go home and continue to resist it." he said with a dismissive shrug. Then slowly, reluctantly, he added "Any vampire's bite would do, you know."

Alexander winced. He knew what that meant –no more missions in his near, or even far, future. They simply couldn't afford the risk of him becoming distracted at a crucial time and letting good, God-fearing civilians die. Or, perhaps worse for him, actually getting bitten.

"That doesn't paint too savory a picture for the Vatican." Alucard continued with a slight smirk. "I admire your tenacity as always, Anderson, but eventually tenacity turns into futile resistance when it comes to a curse such as this. You _will_ be bitten. At this point, your only choice is by whom."

Alucard turned away after this last statement, vanishing from Alexander's sight as he did so. The shadows holding him place dissolved, and he sagged forward for a moment before catching himself.

A week. He's giving the best holy researchers in the world a week to figure this out, and then he is going to decapitate Alucard and throw his head in the deepest trench of the ocean if he _ever_ talked about what Alexander will do next.

* * *

The coffin was a sacrosanct place for any vampire. It was the closest thing to a natural habitat such unnatural creatures could have: it was where they belonged, a place of death and utter darkness, and thus one's own coffin was one's ultimate place of safety. In older times, it was the hermetic egg that birthed the Philosopher's Stone of their unholy existence, and its power had not abated in recent years, when fledglings were often retrieved before they were buried.

Thus, Alucard was quite within his normal bounds to react to his coffin lid being ripped off, four days after the meeting with Iscariot and his little encounter with Anderson, by instinctively throwing the offender across the length of his underground chamber with a guttural roar and a storm of shadows. He would've recognized Integra or Seras by the way their souls were tied to his before they finished crossing the threshold, even in the utter deathlike sleep of his daytime repose: Walter was no fool, and would've awoken him, if he'd needed to be awoken, with much more care. Anyone else that was fool enough to disturb a vampire in this way deserved to be pancaked across the nearest wall.

Well, pancaked if they were anyone but Anderson.

One hand still clenched over his raised lid, half-sitting up within the long box, Alucard watched with interest as his shadows slowly seethed and settled around the room and Anderson pulled himself back together –quite literally. His glasses were shattered, and so was the bone beneath them: the rest of his body didn't seem to be in any better condition.

"I'm impressed that you managed to break in, but less so if your cognitive faculties have degraded so far as to think waking up a vampire like that was a wise decision." he said when he thought enough of Anderson's grey matter had reconfigured to make hearing a possibility, and was rewarded by an incoherent wheeze. Still, within a few moments Anderson was whole again, glaring at him as though Alucard reacting as any vampire would upon finding their coffin ripped open was Alucard's fault.

The curse had gotten noticeably stronger –even without his third eye, Alucard could see it, a sickly orange-red haze haloing every vein beneath Anderson's skin. Shifting over to his third eye completely, it was a rather breathtaking sight, seeing Anderson's powerful body outlined by the glowing traceries of his own circulatory system, spreading like cobwebs through his skull and shuddering with unnatural, fierce energy within his heart. He was half-surprised the priest hadn't tackled him and shoved something –an arm, a neck– into his mouth, desperate to ease the pain of what surely must be a powerful, full-body impetus.

"So," Alucard continued, smirking. "I take it you want me to bite you now."

Anderson winced even as his pulse sped up, a rapid drumming beat that Alucard could hear even from halfway across the room.

"Just shut up." he mumbled, shifting from foot to foot, restless with furious energy. "Bite me and get it over with, you damn monster."

"Charming." Alucard swung his long legs out of his coffin and stood, making his leisurely way over to where Anderson stood by the wall. "Most people don't insult their benefactor when asking for a favor."

Anderson's eyes narrowed as he ground his teeth audibly, two slits of green glaring at him like poison.

"I don't want this and you don't want this." he said, voice tight as he jerked up his sleeve and offered his wrist. "The sooner you bite me, the sooner we can be done with it."

"Mm." Alucard decided not to point out that that was…decidedly untrue. He was very interested in biting Anderson, and it was a _hair_ hard to believe that the priest was so very reluctant in all this as he had claimed, given as Alucard knew the Vatican kept several vampires imprisoned for research purposes. Anderson could have easily forced one of them to bite, and the imprisoned vampire would have been in no condition to turn him or mock his weakness. Instead, however, the priest had risked breaking into the Hellsing family's estate, which would have enormous consequences for the Vatican if his Master caught wind of it –and Alucard was fairly sure this was not an approved mission, which meant Anderson had also bothered to fly the physical distance to England illicitly, bypassing the nearer and more politically-palatable options of the confined vampires in his own backyard.

But from the hollow-eyed exhaustion of the priest, Alucard decided that teasing him with that knowledge would be pointless. Anderson had stretched the curse past its limits and then a good deal farther –they needed to deal with this soon, if he wanted the priest to get over the inevitable guilt and sanctimonious shame of the aftermath and be available for a good scrap again in a reasonable time frame.

Wordlessly, he took the offered hand, thumb pressing into the base of Anderson's palm, just at the hinge of the joint as Alucard delicately turned his wrist over, exposing the faint blue veins underneath. He could sense the blood pulsing in those veins, feel the heat of Anderson even through both their gloves, and felt himself salivating. Alucard wasn't ashamed of it –aside from being centuries past shame, Anderson also smelled _delicious_. Blood as hot as it was lively pounded through his veins, surging through a body that was fit and healthy and in the prime of life, burning with vitality and _incandescent_ with the strength of his spirit, his soul.

Alucard had been tempted more than once to sample a few drops in their little spats, but Anderson tended to guard himself too well, and besides that, the exhilaration of a proper fight with Anderson had always muted his desire to mix business with pleasure. Vampiric bites were, after all, inherently sexual when they weren't being used to kill. An exchange of fluids, the euphoric rush of pleasure for the recipient that came when the vampire made the effort to induce it…not to mention the very human suggestiveness of mouths, teeth, and biting, not to mention the marks they left behind.

Perhaps that was the reason Anderson was so tense, looking away and looking back as though he could not bear to watch but did not dare leave a vampire standing –well, kneeling– next to him unmonitored.

Alucard frowned. His childhood among the Turks had been unpleasant to say the least, and he was more than a little reluctant to inflict that same breed of discomfort upon his beloved nemesis. It wasn't even a matter of respect at this point, it was a matter of self-dignity. For _both_ of them.

"Seras can do this instead, if you're not comfortable." he told him. Anderson's eyes jerked back over, then glanced at his wrist with trepidation.

"The Police Girl." Alucard clarified. "My fledgling."

Anderson was visibly tempted. His bright green eyes raised from his wrist, flicking from Alucard to the door, then back to Alucard again.

"She'd bite me." he said at length, quietly, as though confirming this.

"She would." Alucard agreed. "If I commanded her to."

Speaking of biting, Anderson rolled his lower lip between his teeth. His indecision was honestly adorable, and rather tempting. Why _shouldn't_ he immediately accept that option? Surely it would be less sinful for a female vampire to bite him, less personal for Alucard's obviously inexperienced, unconnected fledgling to do it. She didn't know Anderson except as a threat, something to avoid and be afraid of. She wouldn't know why he would be asking, why Alucard would be commanding her to bite him. She'd just do it.

But Anderson hesitated, and Alucard felt that familiar tingle of delight low in his stomach as he did. Is there something _more_ , here? Oh, he hoped it was so.

Anderson opened his mouth, then closed it again. He gave a little shake of his head.

"I don't want her to have that kind of hold on me." he said at length, and Alucard raised both eyebrows by a slight increment. That same logic applied to him…

He grinned broadly, revealing his perfect teeth. The priest could have all the plausible deniability he wanted, if Alucard got to sink his fangs into that heady flow of blood. Anderson was delicious in every way that counted, and Alucard was more than patient enough to take this as the victory it was and push for more, later.

"Remember, that was your last chance to back out." he said in amusement, and Anderson glared at him through his shattered glasses.

"Just _bite_ me already, you-"

The breathless sound Anderson made when Alucard sank his teeth into the offered wrist had every last one of Alucard's teeth sharpening to a point, his shoulders tensing as the urge to _push_ rose sharp and heavy in his mind. Push against Anderson, push his teeth deeper, push their bodies together and _into_ one another, rip his teeth out of the paladin's wrist and go for the _throat_ instead, dig his fangs so far into the softness of Anderson's flesh that the priest wouldn't be able to _breathe_ without feeling him, without _him_ , meld the two of them into one heated, bloody, chaotic _mess_ with a single beating heart shared between the two of them. Alucard briefly wondered if Anderson would find it repulsive or otherwise if he ripped their chests open and pressed the two of them together so that he could literally feel the priest's warm, still-living heart thumping against his unmoving dead one, feel their flesh healing together so that their wounds would open again if they pulled apart. He himself finds the idea appealing, but then, he would. Mixing the force of life with his own death, sharing intimacy, shedding blood and shredding flesh as only they can…its heady and exciting and having a partner who can actually survive that type of fun and is _still warm_ is an absolute rarity.

But if Anderson is this achingly hypersensitive over a mere bite, he's going to go catatonic if Alucard tried to take this farther.

So he resisted the maddening urge to push, and instead withdrew his teeth after a long moment, making sure the bite had taken effect in every way that counted. And by that, of course, he meant the fabled euphoria that made so many surviving victims addicts to a vampire's kiss, something that he noted had Anderson's breath quickening and his blood coming faster as it thundered through his veins.

Alucard made a mental note –and he could almost feel Anderson doing the same– to never, ever let another vampire within biting distance of the priest, if he was this responsive over it. Alucard guarded his pleasures and his privileges jealously, not having that many of them anymore, and this would certainly be one of them.

Bite having been placed, curse fading from Anderson's body even as he slid his fangs free, Alucard started to suck on the blood flowing from the open wounds in Anderson's skin. Consider it his metaphorical pound of flesh for consenting to and providing this deal, and besides, he had always wanted to know what Anderson _actually_ tasted like.

"Alucard-" Anderson's voice was uneven, shaky. Alucard could _feel_ his blush, even from where he knelt on the cold stone. "You- it's done, the curse is gone, you don't need to-"

"I'm not biting." Alucard said as he pulled away just a touch, pressing his lips lightly against the trickle of blood. "I'm just…"

He looked up as he sucked greedily at the open wound, letting the wet, soft, sustained sound speak for itself as Anderson immediately turned bright red. Christian or not, virgin or not, there was no mistaking the deliberate suggestiveness of that noise.

"Lascivious monster." Anderson muttered, and his muscles tensed when Alucard pulled away a little to speak once more, mouth still pressed against his skin. Alucard was pushing dangerously here and he knew it, but he couldn't help but tease.

"If you wanted me to stop,"

He licked the wound, and grinned as he was rewarded for his boldness, Anderson's pulse jumping briefly against his cheek.

"-you'd have healed it by now."

Anderson mumbled something incoherent that was probably meant to be a protest, but the wound didn't close up, either. Gratifying.

Alucard smirked and slithered his long, slick tongue lasciviously over the wound one last time as the paladin made another –decidedly more flustered– incoherent noise, before spreading his mouth over it and continuing to drink. He wanted to _savor_ this: the flavor, the pounding of Anderson's heart (so very different from when they fought), the faint tremble in his powerful muscles as Alucard sucked his blood. Alucard wondered how far he could take this: as a regenerator, he could drink and drink from Anderson and never drain him dry. It wouldn't even affect the priest overmuch, as long as Alucard kept the drain relatively low and didn't rapidly leech Anderson into a desiccated corpse in his eagerness. Of course, Anderson could _survive_ that, but a constant feast was much, much better than the quick rush of binging.

He hooded his eyes as the heated blood slipped down his throat, turning his head a little to brush his teeth against the warm flesh of Anderson's wrist. Alucard applied gentle pressure, enough so that his fangs pricked rather than pierced, and was rewarded by a gasp and a full-body shudder.

 _I haven't even bitten down yet._ He was tempted to say to the priest, but that involved either pulling his mouth away or invading Anderson's mind with a touch of telepathy, both things that he knew would irk the paladin right now. It was better to beg forgiveness than ask permission, after all.

The first bite mark was half-healed despite Anderson's clear if unconscious best efforts –willpower could only halt the science of his body for so long– and Alucard sank his fangs in _deep_ , so much so that he felt the tip of a tooth brush the hard surface of one of Anderson's bones, renewing both the flow of blood and the rush of ecstasy for the priest. Anderson hissed at the feeling as his free hand suddenly clenched on Alucard's shoulder, bracing himself, and Alucard grinned against the flesh of the priest's wrist as he sensed the blood flowing in an entirely new direction.

"You didn't need to do that." Anderson wheezed, and Alucard knew that if he bothered to look the other man's legs would be trembling.

Reluctantly, he pried his fangs out of that warm casing of flesh, since Alucard knew he had skated onto thin ice –at least as far as the priest's comfort levels went– with the very instance of his first bite, and he did _so_ want to be able to continue this little encounter. Telepathy would have to be out…for now. He was _definitely_ going to try to get the priest to allow similar encounters in the future.

"No, but I wanted to." Alucard drawled, tilting his head back to look up at Anderson's shocked, flustered expression with the lazy, contented smirk of a well-fed wolf. "And I have yet to remember a time when I denied myself what I wanted."

"You-" Anderson paused, swallowed thickly. "You wanted to bite me?"

Alucard grinned from where he knelt on the floor, baring his bloody teeth and not caring. He was far too amused by the way that Anderson's gaze tracked downwards, no longer compelled by the curse but just as helplessly fascinated.

"I wanted to bite you." he said. "And I wanted you to _feel_ it."

Anderson remained silent, but the growing redness in his face was answer enough.

"I wanted to taste you. I wanted to savor the spirit in your blood, my beloved nemesis." Alucard continued, smirking. His gaze tracked downwards towards the priest's waist, which was –amusingly enough– roughly at eye level. "And I wanted you to learn just what you were denying yourself."

Anderson choked and tried to pull away before he was ready for it, falling back against the wall less than two feet behind his body before he could steady himself.

"You are a crude, lascivious, lewd, uninhibited _beast_!" he spat, blushing right down to the roots of his hair as Alucard grinned, pulling himself to his feet.

"You haven't healed your wrist yet." he said by way of reply, before raising one hand and twitching a finger towards himself as his grin widened. "Come on, Anderson. Just a _little_ more, I promise. Then you can scamper on back home."

Anderson hesitated for a moment, clearly fighting against his better sensibilities. Then he looked away –and stiffly thrust out his injured wrist.

"Tell anyone about this and I will _kill_ you, vampire." he muttered darkly.

"You were going to kill me anyways." Alucard said with a fond smile, kneeling down once more. "Its one of my favorite things about you."

"I cannot believe how wretchedly _twisted_ your mind is, a-haaah, Alucard." Anderson muttered, breathing a little shakily when his teeth slid back into the bloodied wound.

Alucard shrugged, too busy savoring the renewed taste of Anderson's blood to really pay attention to irrelevant words. He lost himself in it for a while, savoring the taste and the feel and the warmth of _Anderson_ as that stolen blood surged and danced through his own corpselike veins, bringing a brief pulse of life to his body. He didn't care how often he shifted his jaws or sank his teeth into another part of the man's wrist, or notice how much blood he took, only that eventually Anderson's free hand was gripping his shoulder again, shaky, and the warmth of his body was fading just a tad as renewed blood outnumbered the old, working to regain Anderson's normal body temperature.

It was necessity that made him stop: Anderson, regrettably, couldn't stay for long without a tiresome political incident starting up. Alucard would have to make time for this later, though, in more discreet locations.

He withdrew his teeth and pulled up, staying close to the priest, who seemed to rely on that hand on Alucard's shoulder and the wall against his back to keep him upright. He made a protesting noise when Alucard started to pull away, sending a thrill licking through Alucard's deadened nerves: it seemed the rush of unaccustomed pleasure through Anderson's system had thrown the priest for _such_ a loop that he needed a moment or two to recover.

"Look at you, like a puppet with your strings cut loose." Alucard hummed as he pressed back against Anderson, practically holding the priest up by how Anderson leaned against him and the wall in equal turn. "I could take you to bed right now if I wanted, couldn't I?"

Something vaguely like unease flickered in the back of Anderson's eyes.

"But you won't." he pointed out, tightly.

"I won't." Alucard agreed amicably, before grinning at him. "I'm going to make you _beg_ for it before I do, priest."

Anderson's eyes narrowed. "I don't _beg_ , monster." he growled softly, his whole bulky frame rumbling in mute challenge. To Alucard's pleasure, he made no mention of the implicit statement of Alucard _taking_ him to bed in the first place –whether through the drowsy fog of the bite, pleasure briefly loosening his inhibitions, or a temptation that was a bit more personal, Alucard didn't care, not right now. This was more than enough fertile ground for future encounters.

Alucard grinned wider, before reaching down to wind his fingers through the priest's right hand. He watched as Anderson's expression went from defiant to stunned at the oddly tender gesture, before he lifted their entwined hands, raising them until they were on eye level. He then slowly, deliberately turned his head, pressing his lips to the place on Anderson's wrist where the bites had been, not breaking eye contact even once as his tongue briefly eeled against the now-sensitive skin, watching Anderson's astonished look change to a trembling, heady blush.

"That," he purred as he withdrew his tongue. "Remains to be seen."


End file.
